Impact of the air temperature and atmospheric circulation on extreme precipitation in Poland

Abstract

There are two aims of this paper: First, the relationship between daily and hourly precipitation extremes and air temperature is investigated for the validity of Clausius–Clapeyron (C–C) scaling; second, the impact of the atmospheric circulation and transport of humidity on the extreme precipitation events occurrence in Poland is analysed based on data obtained from 26 stations across Poland in the period 1951–2015. It was shown that daily‐scale extreme rainfall is less sensitive to changes in local atmospheric temperature but the hourly intensities reveal a similar behaviour at all stations showing a robust signal over the entire country. Regarding the impact of the large‐scale atmospheric circulation, three types were distinguished in cool part of the year: one connected with the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), second with a low‐pressure zone in the north and high‐pressure in the south of Europe and the northern Atlantic and third with a low over central Europe. Each time high precipitation in Poland was connected with the advection of humid air from the western sectors (SW, W or NW). In the warm part of the year three types were distinguished too, Poland was always in the scope of low‐pressure systems with the advection of warm air from the southern sectors or when the warm air from the south meets the colder air from the north. Similar localizations of low centres have been found in the case of local‐scale atmospheric circulation types during events with extreme precipitation. Both in cool and warm part of the year such events are connected with the increase of water vapour in the air. In cool season the wet and warm air masses inflow to Poland the most often from Atlantic, in the warm season—from Mediterranean and/or Black Seas.

The relationship of atmospheric air temperature and dew point temperature to extreme rainfall

“…Scaling of rainfall extremes much higher than C-C (super C-C) has been found across a variety of climates and regions (Lenderink and van Meijgaard 2008, Liu et al 2009, Mishra et al 2012, particularly for short rainfall durations (Hardwick Jones et al 2010, Lenderink et al 2011, Panthou et al 2014, Busuioc et al 2016, Wasko et al 2018, Wibig and Piotrowski 2018. Super C-C scaling has generally been attributed to the convective nature of short duration storms , Park and Min 2017.…”

Influence of air pressure patterns over Europe on solar radiation variability over Poland (1986–2015)

“…The results obtained show that GSR conditions in Poland are associated with SLP field in the Euro‐Atlantic region. As shown in many studies, climate conditions in Poland, including temperature, cloud cover and precipitation, are greatly affected by the North Atlantic Oscillation (Marsz and Styszyńska, 2001; Wibig and Glowicki, 2002; Żmudzka, 2007; Wibig and Piotrowski, 2018). The same applies to the amount of GSR reaching the Earth's surface.…”

“…The type of baric centre affects significantly the amount of GSR reaching the Earth: cyclonic systems are characterized by the presence of atmospheric fronts and significant stratified cloudiness, which limits the inflow of GSR, while anticyclonic centres usually prompt low cloudiness, which facilitates the inflow of GSR. The configuration of the baric field affects also the direction and type of incoming air masses, whose optical properties are very important in the GSR transmission ( _ Zmudzka, 2007;Uscka-Kowalkowska, 2008). For these reasons, the actual average daily sums of energy reaching the Earth's surface in Poland, which is located in the middle latitudes, range from about 1.5 MJ•m −2 in winter to about 17-18 MJ•m −2 in summer (Bogda nska and Podogrocki, 2000).…”

“…The influence of atmospheric circulation on other climate elements is already relatively well known. Research has shown that atmospheric circulation significantly influences temperature field (Migała et al, 2016) and precipitation (Marosz et al, 2013;Wibig and Piotrowski, 2018), among others. Until now, relatively little attention has been paid to the impact of atmospheric circulation on the amount of GSR reaching the Earth's surface.…”

Magnitude and Frequency of Temperature and Precipitation Extremes and the Associated Atmospheric Circulation Patterns in the Yellow River Basin (1960–2017), China

“…One of the physical mechanisms of climatic extremes is atmospheric circulation [32,33], and lead to a variety of precipitation extremes [34][35][36][37]. Some examples of atmospheric patterns are the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Arctic Oscillation (AO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) [9].…”